The obsession with plastic interiors also kinda annoys me, as well as chrome rims!
Hate to break it to you, but unless a car is a luxury car swathed in leather, or an old car with metal interior, pretty much every car is filled with plastic interior parts. Vinyl is a plastic, and 99% of cars have vinyl dashes and door panels and center consoles. Plastic is easy to mold into any shape, fairly lightweight, can be made hard or soft, and thus meet interior occupant protection requirements. My 7 series BMW is all plastic inside, except for a couple leather inserts and leather seats, and some plastic coated wood. My MGB dash is entirely plastic. My Range Rover is plastic with a bit of leather on the door panels, and the seats.
Hate to shock you, but most of this interior is plastic:
And this is my 740iL. Most of it is plastic, as well (the 750 got leather on all the exposed areas of the dash and center console)
And don't bother responding with a couple limited edition high end versions of European cars. Look at the mainstream stuff from VW, Citroen, Fiat, Skoda, Peugeot, etc. Even the mainstream BMWs and Mercedes. ALL filled with various plastics, because
that's how you build cars.
As for chrome wheels, just like chrome trim, it's about the body accent. A lot of my favorite European cars have chrome or polished wheels and trim, too.
But I love them on hot rods and musclecars, too. It's like jewelry on a beautiful woman.
Oh, and one more question, of which I'm genuinely interested: Are there any Americans here who actually liked the Chrysler PT?
I do.
I see what you're saying in the value-for-money argument, but there's a point where standing out in the crowd is happening for the wrong reasons.
Looks are subjective, which is why people like you can still find a girlfriend. :lol:
I like the 3/4 scale street rod look. It's like having a '37 Ford sedan with a warranty and better build quality/versatility. The idea was that it was a small, tall station wagon, the kind of vehicle people were screaming that the average SUV owner should have instead. It wasn't just a featureless small box, or a cute-ute wannabe-offroader (whihc is worse). Just a basic, inexpensive small wagon with a lot of utility, versatilty, and for a lot of us, fun cool style. And not just us. There were PT Cruiser clubs popping up in Japan and Germany within a month of it being announced, and many of the first ones that were ordered ended up there in huge PT Cruiser clubs.
My own PT was a 2002 5 speed manual Touring edition that I had for 5 years. Never had a single defect in it, no squeaks, rattles, parts falling off, no mechanical failures or electrical failures. It went all over the east oast of the US, from Maine to Orlando. It was comfortable to drive for 17 hours straight (the trip to orlando from Baltimore) and for daily commute duties. I carried all the lumber for the deck on my house in it, as well as ALL the replacement windows (a stack of 16 32"x64" double hung windows with frames, stacked floor to ceiling with the hatch closed). I carried home 1500lbs worth of bagged crushed rock for the side driveway in one load with no porblems (and it barely affected the handling). Went camping numerous times in it. Autocrossed it for a season (and taught my wife how to autocross in it). Probably overall the best car I've ever had at the job of being a car, and I've owned over a hundred cars in the last 30 years. When I sold it after getting my first Range Rover (to tow a travel trailer) it was still in as flawless condition as when I drove it off the dealer lot with only 3 miles on it.
As I said, I love the semi street rod styling, though I would have liked to customize it a bit with the billet grillework. I really liked the painted interior bits, comfy steering wheel, and cue-ball shifter, and the seats could fold up and come out in about 50 different configurations.
Just for reference, here's mine. Street rod styling AND Chrome wheels, just to mess with you (left the stock ones on to go autocrossing with) :lol:
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